This is a custom box I'm making that will take the place of the back seats in any thirdgen. It will house two JBL P-800 8" subs and two Sony 3-way bookshelf speakers that I dissassembled to make fit in the new box. On the left is a model I made from posterboard and on the right are the two speaker boxes without the middle section. There will be one of these behind each seat and will be connected by a vented, fan-cooled box that will house two amps. This is a work in progress so I'll post more pics once I get more of it built. It's a little overkill but it's a change from your typical under-hatch sub box. Tell me what you think.

 

it looks like its gonna be really heavy and your not gonna really be able to see out the back but it is nice to see a little different design. Its always good when people think up something new.

 

It's always interesting to see new designs, but the bass response is going to suffer compared to having the subs in the traditional location.

 

Looks cool.
Keep us posted.

 

I believe that the sub will go in the foot area behind the front seats so the rear view shouldn't be obscured.

I agree with everyone else. Neat idea. Seen it before but I've never heard one of these setups in person so I don't know what they sound like.

 

The top of the box won't be any higher than the wheelwell where the t-tops sit so it won't obstruct the rearview at all. I'm making it from 1/2" MDF so it won't be that heavy (about 23lbs for the entire box not including equipment). As far as bass response goes I had two 8" JL Microsub setups behind each seat and it sounded great. The only reason I don't like well boxes is because you get a lot more rattling from the tail-lights and plastic panels back there.

 

And your solution is easier/better then fixing the rattles?

 

it's not a solution to anything, it's an idea that I had. No need to get defensive, there is no right or wrong when it comes to car audio, it's all preference.

 

Nice job, way to take initiative! Too many people are too worried about what other people will think about their projects to do something different like this.

 

I want to see the finished system installed, because I think it will look and sound good.
I had a custom box under the hatch for 12 years, then last year I took out the head, amp, subs, tweeters, and reinstalled the stock sound system. so glad I had kept all the stuff!
12 years ago I wanted a killer audio sytem, now I want a completely stock interior. It is about what I want

 

ive been wantin to change my backseat and rear hatch setup..but i dont even know where to start

 

Jim touched on this earlier and I think is worth mentioning again. You have a unique design which is cool, but your low frequency response is going to suffer compared to the subs in the hatch area due to the longer wavelength of sub-bass frequencies vs. the now less distance from sub to you.

 

Not true but the right idea. Keep in mind that a 40 Hz wave is a little over 20 feet long.

The reason why the back of any car is ideal for subs is because soundwaves will travel to the back of the car, bounce off the back of the car, and then come back to the front of the car. This can create phasing problems and will cancel certain frequencies out. The closer the sound source is to the back of the car the lesser this effect. Some people are actually able to open their hatch and experience a gain in output with a back seat sub.

Also, the hatch amplifies the sound in car with a hatch box. If you were you build a box for your hatch and compare back seat vs hatch the hatch will sound louder.

 

here is one of the boxes and how it will fit

 

you do know the home theater speakers are probably 8 ohms whereas the sub is more than likey 4 ohm. check your ohmage before you burn your car down.

 

The 8 ohm impedance will not create any sort of a fire hazard whatsoever (if anything your amp will run cooler). You will not be using the full potential of your amp however. Not a biggie though as it will not take much power at all to run those home speakers.

 

didnt litterally mean the car would start on fire.

 

I kinda like the one you got working on the passenger side. A little more my size. Are you building both or was that just an idea you had at another time.

 

That looks like a cardboard mockup for the base.

 

good idea for the box i like it... i think you might try and attach the bow with mdf or make a removable panels of some sort to hold and amp or something. just an idea but keep up the work

 

I'm working on a box to hold two amps that will fit in between the two speaker boxes but it's taking me some time since the space I have to work with is so awkward. I have to get it to fit over the driveshaft hump but not make it too bulky. I have the carpet coming on wednesday so I should be done by the end of the week.

 

well tkae pics of the process plz and post. id really like toseee how its looks

 

Here is the near finished product. I still have some carpeting to do and some wiring issues to figure out. Should have it done and installed in the next couple days.

 

deffinately kool just fisnish it up and it should look pretty rockin in your ride.

 

Does that come apart, cuz it doesn't look like that would fit through the side to me

 

it's three seperate pieces, but it does fit in through the back hatch

 

why did you carpet around the speakers instead of carpeting right up to the hole? That carpet is going to look rough and unfinished around the drivers.

 

You can't see any rough edges with the speakers in. The carpet I got was black on both sides so I wasn't able to mark anything on it cause it wasn't visible.

 

Here it is in the car. It fits in so perfect and snug that I won't even have to bolt it down. I'm still waiting on the amp for the subs but I was able to test the sound from the rear speakers and I was very impressed. My only problem now is that the rear speakers way overshadow the sound from the 4X6's so I'm looking into kick panels. I thought I read that a couple people that post on here do custom kick pods so if anyone could point me in a direction that would be great.

 

I do kicks and Rezn8r did, but I think he got out of it now that he sold his thirdgen. If you're interested, you can PM me.

 

Interesting setup. Looks like it weighs much more than 30 pounds though!

Do let us know how it sounds!

 

I've got everything installed and I've been playing around with some of the amps I have lying around to try and get the best sound from each set of speakers. The Sony home speakers I put in sound amazing and are in a much better spot than the stock 6X9 location. The bass from the Sony's is excellent almost to the point where I don't even need the subs (after all the subs are the same size as the woofers on the Sony's). As far as the subs go I think I built the boxes a little too small. It seems like they're struggling to get sound out. I bought the JBL's because they were made to fit in very small sealed enclosures but I apparently went too small (about .23Cubes per box without the speaker). I should've went wider on the sub boxes but I wanted to keep each speaker box the same width.
I'm still running Clarion 4X6's in the front but I've got a set of components coming tomorrow that I plan to put in the kick panels. After that I can see where I stand with everything else. I'll probably end up scratching the whole project and just do a hatch box but we'll see. The only reason I made this box was to integrate the Sony Home speakers but I'm thinking now that I may have gone a bit overboard with that idea. This is the first speaker box I've ever made and I kind of did it just to see if I could. I figure now that I've built this big ugly hunk'o'junk, I can build anything... now it's on to fiberglass.

 

With fiberglass it wouldn't be that difficult to incorporate the sony rears into a sub box if you do end up building one. I thought about building my next box to hold both two 12" subs and two 7" midbass drivers in separate chambers but I scratched the idea because I don't have the amps power it the way I want to. I also really like the strong front stage I’m running right now and don’t want to detract from it by adding midbass drivers in the back of the car.

 

is the 'middle' of the box, (that connects the bookshelf and sub together on each side, hollow?

why not make it one big box until you get to the bookshelf?

 

that's actually what I plan on doing. Once I finish the kickpods I'll start on that.

 

it will be a significant improvement